


preaching adaptation

by convalessence



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Dangan Ronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Depictions of Violence but it's not that bad, Gen, Lowercase, Lowkey Fatphobia, Maybe a little gross sorry :/, This is almost three years old now oh my gooooddddd
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-15
Updated: 2020-03-15
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:27:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23163259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/convalessence/pseuds/convalessence
Summary: careless people get what they deserve.
Kudos: 3





	preaching adaptation

celestia ludenberg had arrived at hope’s peak academy with one simple dream: to show off her skills at the most prestigious institution of talent in japan - no, the entire world - and become the richest, most powerful, most beautiful woman in the world, and live in a beautiful rococo mansion with a mile of gardens, wearing only the finest of clothes, surrounded by only the best luxuries in life, and served by handsome undead butlers.

okay, maybe that wasn’t a very simple dream. but she believed in her dreams firmly, resolutely, absolutely. 

was that so wrong? 

when she woke up by herself in a locked classroom at what she could only assume was her new school, her gut dropped; was this some sort of orientation exercise? a surprise entrance examination? of course, if it was the latter, she could pass easily - her talent may have been connected to luck, but anybody can have sheer dumb luck. it’s the ones who learn how to make their own luck that survive in this world. celestia ludenberg knew everything about survival. 

and what a good thing that was when that horrible dichromatic bear’s announcement was made. her poker face, long perfected, sat unwavering on her porcelain features, her head tipped curiously to the side as if she were deciding what to order at her favorite cafe. (a cup of milk tea and a plate of their finest milk chocolate crepes, perhaps with a complementary macaron - red, her favorite color.) of course, this was most likely some sort of sick joke, because who would make high schoolers kill each other? they were seventeen, it wasn’t like any one of them was capable of murder. or, most of them, rather. 

when it finally sank in that yes, this was real, this stuffed animal really meant to make them slaughter each other like dirty wild animals, she kept up her smile and began to plan her escape, all the while preaching adaptation and peace. nobody would suspect her if she planted her seeds early. her eyes scanned the gymnasium, trying to figure out who would be the least connected to her. the swimmer, perhaps? or the large biker with the impractical hair? someone nobody would expect her to do away with, someone nobody would expect her to interact with long enough to care to kill. 

after sayaka maizono died, though, her plans were thrown to the side. she had never expected one of them to actually get the guts to off someone. however, whoever it was had been sloppy - their technique was atrocious. an obvious struggle? blood everywhere? there would be a tell somewhere. there was always a tell. nobody could gamble like that. 

nobody could gamble like _her_. 

so of course they found out who did it, and they dragged him away to be punished, because fools who make such terrible mistakes ought to be punished for their stupidity - it would be so easy for him to cover his tracks, but he had to utilize his talent, that stupid overhand pitch, stupid, stupid, _idiot_. celestia laughed as the baseballs thudded against his writhing form, stood there and giggled into her ringed hand as he screamed and struggled and then stopped with a fatal 80-mph crack to the center of his careless skull. 

everyone stood, mouths agape in horror, but celestia smiled.

careless people always got what they deserved. 

she figured that after kuwata’s gruesome death, future murderers would think more about what they were doing, which meant they would need time to plan, which gave her time. now that two - three, can’t forget about that reckless fashion model who had too large of a mouth - of her potential victims were out of the picture, she had to carefully reevaluate who were the maizonos and who were the kuwatas. she spent her meals, which she insisted be taken by the entire class, watching, waiting, all the while imploring her dear fellow students to simply adapt to life in their cage. 

chihiro fujisaki’s murder proved that no one listened to her. they obviously thought her weak-willed, naive, stupid. that would be the only reason why they wouldn’t do what she said. she really didn’t care what these losers thought of her - as long as she got out and they didn’t, they could tell her to her face they thought she was as brainless as asahina and she would have given them a smile. 

however, it was obvious that nobody was listening to her, and that irked her. she hated when people didn’t listen to her.

this time, as mondo oowada was pulled screaming to his execution, she yawned. why was everyone so careless? there was always, always a tell. people who wore their heart on their sleeve never won battles of wit like this. they always cracked, and when mondo oowada cracked and screamed and cried and begged for forgiveness, she raised her fingers to her mouth and yawned, delicate and pristine like everything else so carefully constructed around her. when ishimaru was handed the tub of butter his friend had been made into, she turned her heel on the crying boy and went to make herself some tea. 

the only person who ever listened to her was yamada. 

hifumi yamada. that disgusting, repulsive, hamster-mouthed tub of lard. the very sight of him brought bile up into celestia’s throat, but he made an acceptable cup of royal milk tea when put under pressure, and queens had to start somewhere, even if that was with incompetent servants, so she tolerated him, pat him on the head when he did something right and slowly, ever so slowly, built up his loyalty to her. she was, after all, the perfect queen, was she not? perfect, decadent, elegant, her petticoats full and her lips curved up in a beautiful, passive smile. the very picture of a french noble. 

she liked to test how far he would go for her - first, throwing her cup to the floor and demanding he make her more tea, but _properly this time, you idiot_ , then asking him to fetch her this and that and everything in between, relishing the way he visibly relaxed whenever she touched him with spidery, black-tipped fingers. when she lifted up her leg and flexed her foot, he knelt down and pressed his lips to the toe of her pump, and she allowed herself a small smile. 

the day he knelt at her feet and kissed her shoes until they were slick and shiny with his spit, she knew that he was hers. she held down the food in her stomach that threatened to be brought up at the sight of his disgusting saliva all over her crimson louboutin pumps with a vermilion sole and ran her fingers through his hair (greasy, _eugh_ ) and told him she loved him. and he ate up every word, every gesture, every tweak of her facial muscles. he told her he was hers, her devoted servant, willing and able to provide anything her heart desired.

she thought to herself that what she desired was to be fifty kilos away from this beast at all times. 

but how was she doing to drive yamada to assist her in her plans? she could tell he needed more than his undying devotion to her. some boys just ask for too much.

when the disgusting swimmer girl broke celestia’s carefully crafted night time rule (how else could she protect herself? she was physically weaker than every remaining student, except perhaps for naegi, but he was too stupid to actually think of murder) and found fujisaki’s artificial intelligence program, celestia knew she’d hit the jackpot. 

a cute 2-d girl that yamada spent many hours late at night conversing with? 

the perfect tool.

but now, who would she kill? the time to plan was now, before the novelty and relevance of alter ego faded, before everyone settled down from the rolling inconsistencies and terrors that immediately followed a class trial.

there was only one person that came to mind as an easy target.

so she came to yamada at night, tears brimming but not disturbing perfectly applied eyeliner, spinning tales that would make even herself sick to hear, baring what he believed were her heart and soul to him. when she sniffled and wiped away a tear and yamada rose to his feet in righteous indignation at the violation of his mistress, swearing to kill him, to restore the honor of the only woman who cared for him, she used her hand to cover up her wide grin. 

got him. 

boys were really so stupid sometimes. 

she and yamada met late at night, breaking her own rule to plot every detail. there were too many aspects to leave to pure chance - the hiding of their motive, the weapon, how the murder itself would be committed, how to deflect the blame from them - "us", she crooned in his ear, "it’s just you and me, yamada-kun, together against this cold, uncaring world," and he ate her untruths right from her palm and begged for more. 

some part of her thought that perhaps she should make this much less of a production than it was turning out to be. a more fabulous story would have more opportunities to be poked full of holes. 

celestia waved it away. she’d always been told she had amazing luck. perhaps this was the perfect opportunity to put that to the test. when she pulled this off, the satisfaction would be immense, knowing that such a huge gamble had paid off, and if there was one thing, one thing in this world celestia loved, it was the endorphins that accompanied a successful high-stakes gamble. 

if there was another thing, it was money.

god, she needed that money. 

so she selected her pawns, hagakure and yamada, and planned every last detail down to the individual threads of her web, dotted her i’s, crossed her t’s. 

and then she rolled the dice. 

but sometimes boys were so stupid. 

celestia ludenberg had lost her most important gamble, thrown away her hand because she had underestimated a disgusting tub of lard who kissed the very ground she walked on. 

however, she wasn’t going to be a kuwata or an oowada, sniveling and pleading for their lives. she was going to be a ludenberg. she plastered a smile onto her face and explained herself cheerfully, figuring that perhaps these people who believed they were her friends deserved an explanation for why they had lost three classmates in one day. her eyes traveled over the expressions of betrayal, hurt, anger, and her grin shrank a little bit as the weight of what was going to happen to her crashed down on her shoulders.

celestia ludenberg had gambled.

celestia ludenberg had lost.

celestia ludenberg was going to die. 

she was nothing if not good at lying, though. she often bragged that she was even able to lie to herself. so as she gave her final pardons to her friends - no, not friends, her _pawns_ , her _enemies_ \- she willed herself with all her heart to believe her words. 

tied to a pole, flames dancing at her crimson louboutin pumps with the vermilion soles, she closed her eyes and waited. 

this was all for her dream, so it was worth it, wasn’t it? 

she wanted to be something, the richest, most beautiful, most powerful woman in the world, served and adored and feared, commanding attention and obedience. 

she wanted to live surrounded by decadence and elegance, silk and ruffles and petticoats and the finest china her well-earned money could buy. she wanted to walk through a mile of gardens at dawn, wandering through cobblestone paths winding through rosebushes and lilacs and hyacinths, sakura trees and marble statues and a koi pond. 

but she had been careless. she had put too much responsibility on her accomplice, had thought that she could trust him with something so simple as crushing someone’s skull, but that was sloppy, shortsighted, _careless_.

careless people always got what they deserved.


End file.
